Got $1.5 million to spare? Looking to have your company's name on jerseys in the Premier League? Then getting into the exciting world of referee sponsorship may just be for you.

And the opportunity will be available as early as next season. The world's most watched soccer league is seeking a new sponsor for its match officials' uniforms starting in the 2013-2014 campaign after its deal with Expedia Inc.EXPE12.85% expires this summer, according to Richard Masters, the Premier League's director of sales and marketing.

Of course, the likes of Howard Webb and Martin Atkinson probably won't appeal to potential backers in the same way as star players, like Robin van Persie or Wayne Rooney, since Manchester United's global fan base is counted in the hundreds of millions. No one, meanwhile, watches the Premier League and roots for the referees. Nor do referees have the power to sell jerseys.

But the price for a season on a referee's shirt is considerably more affordable.

"It's a different sort of sponsorship within football, and I think it represents value given the breadth of coverage," Masters said.

AonAON-1.15% reportedly paid £80 million ($122.4 million) in 2009 to sponsor Manchester United's shirts for four years, and General MotorsGM-1.25% inked a multiyear contract with United last summer. That deal, which will see GM's Chevrolet brand replace Aon for seven years beginning in 2014, cost the car maker a reported £357 million. In the past week, United even signed a $240 million deal with Aon for the right to sponsor its practice jersey over the next eight years.

So for just a fraction of that, sponsoring the referees allows a brand to appear on jerseys in the Premier League—broadcast to more than 700 million homes every weekend, according to the league—Football League, FA Cup, League Cup and Johnstone's Paint Trophy. The annual cost of sponsoring the officials is believed to be just over £1 million.

Masters wouldn't say how many potential sponsors the Premier League, which handles commercial duties on behalf of England's refereeing body, the Professional Game Match Officials Limited, was currently talking to.

While prominently displayed sponsors have been common on team jerseys in Europe since the 1980s, seeing them appear on referee's shirts is relatively recent. FIFA, world soccer's governing body, gave the green light to sponsor advertising for referees in domestic leagues in 2001, but it remains forbidden in FIFA competitions such as the World Cup.

FIFA also has strict guidelines on where branding can be placed—only on shirt sleeves, as opposed to the chest region that many clubs sell to their primary sponsors—and what kind of brands are permitted. As set out in FIFA's equipment regulations, all advertising for "tobacco-related products, gambling establishments (casinos), and alcoholic beverages" is prohibited.

Match officials in the Premier League were first sponsored in 2004 by Emirates, and referees in Spain's Liga and Germany's Bundesliga have long been backed by, respectively, Wurth Espana and DEKRA.

In Italy's Serie A, referees have not been sponsored since 2006, its refereeing body said.

"This type of sponsorship is more of a side dish than main course," said Michael Stirling, founder of Global Sponsors, which advises companies on sponsorship opportunities. "But the importance of it is that referees are independent, and independence does make it attractive to a number of large corporate groups. The reason for that is that a number of large groups historically have not wanted to be associated with any single club.

"If the referees were actually involved in some form of commentary to justify their decision making or even if branding would be across the shirt like it is for players, then I think that would make it a very attractive prospect."

For Expedia, the partnership with England's referees was primarily a matter of latching onto the Premier League's broad exposure in Asian markets, according to Andrew Warner, Expedia's senior marketing director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

The potential downside is that referees are often magnets for controversy. But Warner said Expedia didn't reconsider its sponsorship when Premier League referee Mark Clattenburg was accused by Chelsea of directing a racist comment towards its midfielder, John Obi Mikel, after the Blues faced Manchester United in October. Clattenburg was cleared by the FA a month later.

"The Clattenburg incident in many ways was something that drove up media coverage which wasn't such a bad thing, and it was something handled incredibly professionally," Warner said. "And what we saw in the media agenda—which we obviously track—was a very healthy debate about the fact these guys do a very difficult job, making tough calls on a daily basis and generally doing well."

But even when they don't, it can work to a sponsor's advantage. Just look at Specsavers, a chain of opticians that has aligned itself with referees in Scotland for more than a decade. Any blunder can suddenly become ad fodder—and comedy gold—accompanied by the company's catchphrase of "Should have gone to Specsavers."

It hasn't limited itself to referees. The company pounced when the South Korean flag was shown next to North Korean players on a big screen before an Olympic football game in Glasgow in July and when Chelsea's Eden Hazard clashed with a ball boy in Swansea in January, taking out newspaper ads.

"I think we just make nice gentle jokes about not being able to see properly," said Specsavers' marketing director Richard Holmes. "It's never heavy handed. It's never supposed to be nasty. I think we've succeeded in making the referees recognized as individuals with personalities instead of slightly anonymous figures."

Specsavers approached the Premier League about sponsoring the referees in the mid-2000s, according to Holmes, but nothing came of it. And yet, it was in the Premier League referee conversation last December, after Queens Park Rangers manager Harry Redknapp didn't like a call by a linesman.

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